Obama Easter Breakfast Has Religious Leaders Who Enabled Abortion

President Barack Obama hosted a collection of “religious leaders” at the White House this morning for an Easter prayer breakfast. The event would have been a respected Christian one had it not been for the abortion enablers in attendance.

Following Obama’s five-minute remarks, Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, delivered the prayer. McKenzie is involved as a member of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that Obama put together, but she upset pro-life advocate in November 2006 when she signed her name to a letter blasting pro-life advocates for saying then-Sen. Barack Obama should not be welcomed at an AIDS summit hosted by evangelical church pastor Rick Warren because of his pro-abortion views.

For pro-life Catholics, the most troubling guest at today’s prayer breakfast was Sister Carol Keehan, the CEO of the Catholic Health Association.

The Catholic Health Association came under fire from pro-life advocates for supporting the legislation and its final position for the bill is credited with providing the political cover former Rep. Bart Stupak and a group of pro-life Democrats needed to vote for the legislation in the face of opposition from every national pro-life organization and the Catholic bishops.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, spoke with LifeNews.com at the time of the endorsement and said CHA was wrong about abortion funding and he said the Obamacare bill “contains multiple pro-abortion provisions, which in total constitute the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation to reach the House floor since Roe v. Wade.”

Before that, Keehan earned the scorn of pro-life advocates for applauding Obama’s selection of pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his initial choice for secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Later, the Catholic Health Association backed the phony compromise on abortion funding in the Senate health care bill released by Sen. Bob Casey and rejected by pro-life groups.

Pastor Joel Hunter of Northland Church in Florida, also attended today’s event and he became one of the leading apologists for Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign and went as far as accusing pro-life advocates of lying about Obama’s pro-abortion record after the election.

Seeking to insulate himself from the ineluctable criticism he knew he would receive from pro-life groups for advocating abortion and embryonic stem cell research, President Obama placed pastor Joel Hunter on his faith team. Then, in March 2009, Hunter blamed the pro-life criticism of Obama’s growing pro-abortion record not on Obama’s own actions but on pro-life groups not understanding his intentions.

Hunter said the outrage over Obama’s forcing taxpayers to fund new embryonic stem cell research that destroys human life could have been prevented if the Obama administration and supporters like him could have better explained the president’s decision — as if pro-life advocates are a tractable bunch who are easily persuaded by false rhetoric.

Hunter told Politico a sizable percentage of pro-life advocates “still [have] a desire to see [Obama] in the best light.”

“I think the ones who are screaming bloody murder right now are the ones who may not have been reachable to begin with,” he added.

Then he took his comments to another level by accusing pro-life groups of lying about or misrepresenting the president’s record.

“But there are a whole lot of us on their e-mail lists — and we have people who want to think the best of the president — but they are getting all this mischaracterization and false information,” Hunter claimed.

Meanwhile, Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale, the Senior Pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church, also attended the prayer breakfast. She is one of the signers of a “compromise” on abortion on Obamacare that claimed to stop abortion funding in the bill would have continued it unabated,

Bishop TD Jakes, Senior Pastor of The Potter’s House attended the Easter breakfast and he drew opposition from pro-life black leaders who were upset how he said he got “visible goose bumps” upon hearing that pro-abortion Senator Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

After the breakfast, Hunter told CNN the event was “a time of great togetherness where we can focus on the one person we have in common — that’s Jesus Christ, not the president.” But, for some of the religious leaders there, their focus was getting Obama, the most pro-abortion president since Roe v. Wade, in the White House.